Is 9% Bike Rate Reasonable? Try 50%
May 15th, 2009 | by Clay Gump | Published in Bicycles
Two Wheelers at Davis California
The recent UMD Bike Study sets fo goal of 9% bike commuters. a 4% increase. Is this a large numbers? The study mentions Davis CA as a model.
This is a very attainable goal for the University of Maryland with a sustained commitment and investment. The goal of a 9% bicycle mode share is modest in comparison to bicycling rates at other universities and other university towns. For example, Madison, Wisconsin has a bicycling rate for the town of 11% and a bicycling rate among students of 27%. Davis, California has a bicycle commuting rate of 25% of the town’s population, and the University of California at Davis has a student bicycling rate of over 50%.
Wow! 50% is a large number of cycliss. Just imagine the empty parking lots. A recent post at WIRED discusses the benefits of the Davis CA biking system. Some of what they have done could apply directly to College Park.
“Being a college town is a big benefit for us,” Berg says. “The central (UC) campus is closed to cars, so if students want to get around bikes are really their best bet.” He adds that today most of Davis’ new residential developments are designed to include bike infrastructure, which eliminates the need to spend big money later on retrofits.
